Structures resident in the stomach have been used for a variety of clinical applications including nutritional modulation for bariatrics, ingestible electronics for diagnosis and monitoring, and gastric retentive dosage forms for prolonged drug delivery. Many such structures incorporate elastic polymers to compress large structures during delivery through narrow orifices including the esophagus. However, the non-degradable/non-dissociable nature of these materials risk intestinal obstruction in the setting of accidental structure fracture or migration. These complications have been observed across a range of structures including ingestible electronic structures, percutaneous feeding tubes as well as intragastric balloons for weight loss. Furthermore, previous attempts at gastric residence for drug delivery included mucoadhesion, gastric swelling, and flotation on gastric fluids. However, none of these approaches have demonstrated gastric residence for more than 24 hours, let alone progressed to clinical use.
Despite of the broad and increasing clinical utility of these structures, there is still a need for a mechanism or material which prevents intestinal obstruction upon exiting the stomach.